Posts tagged: ira glass

For a whole generation of podcasters and writers, Ira Glass and his This American Life radio show are the gold standard.

Glass has won pretty much every available award, and the This American Life podcast is downloaded by more than a million people each week. (One podcaster I met said he trots out “WWID?” to test his decisions — shorthand for “What Would Ira Do”).

That’s why I perked up when I stumbled across a “This is How I Work” interview with Glass that outlines the methods used to produce This American Life.

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without? Why?

On the tech/app side I keep things unsophisticated. Pro Tools to edit sound, Microsoft Word for writing. This American Life runs on Google Docs. Before Google Docs existed, those rare times I met software engineers, I’d ask them to please create software so two people in different locations could edit a document together online. God bless Google Docs.

We use Google Docs so much at the radio show because we edit and re-edit each story many times before it gets to air. At each edit, we add at least one producer who’s never heard the earlier versions.

Editing a radio story goes like this: The reporter reads the script out loud and when it’s time for the quotes, we play those from the computer. Someone times how long the story is. We all take notes. If you’d stuck your head into the office, you’d see four of five of us scribbling away furiously and noting what we’d change. Lately we’ve been buying Muji notebooks and .38 Muji gel ink pens at the office for this purpose. They’re pleasant to touch and make the world seem like an orderly place. I number and date my notebooks in case I need to go back to them later.

I really can’t stand writing in Google Docs, but I’m seeing a lot of people referencing its usefulness as a collaborative tool.

“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.

It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

He’s referring to those producing video, but alter a few words, and it maps to pretty much any creative endeavor. Including writing.

The entire 5:20 segment is here:

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

the underground

For almost 30 years I've worked as a writer (most of it freelance). I'm also the father of two perfect little girls.

Despite these things, I remain mostly sane.

The Underground reflects my interest in all kinds of writing and all kinds of writers (if you're looking for SEO advice, you're probably in the wrong place).